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We’ve all
heard that we are a consumer nation. That is true and it’s not a bad thing. We
are also a disposal nation. When we buy stuff, we throw stuff out. This
includes Xboxes, new faucets, pencils, sheets, toothpaste…you can fill this in
with whatever you bought yesterday. We also buy food, some in boxes, some in
cans, some in plastic bags, some raw…you get it. And unlike other countries we
are blessed with a “waste management system” (we used to call it garbage, but
apparently that is not politically correct) that allows us to end our view of
trash when we dump it into a can, bin or some other receptacle. Even a good
portion of our litter (still drives me nuts when I see someone flick a
cigarette out their car window) disappears from its resting place.

I can already
he hear many of you saying that we don’t have a good system, that there are
holes in the system, that there are problems with landfills, etc. You are
right, and I am not saying we are 100% fine and dandy. But I want you to stop
and compare what you see out your window at work and at home and compare it to
places like Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the Citarum River in Indonesia's West Java;
and the Yamuna River, India.

Don’t ask me
why (I wouldn’t even ask my shrink…if I had one…don’t need one…maybe) but when
I started to think about writing about this issue I started thinking about the
Sci-Fi movie, District 9. For those of you who haven’t seen it, (shame on you)
it touches on many political, racism and xenophobic issues. It begins in 1982,
when an alien ship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. When a population
of sick and malnourished insect-like aliens is found aboard the ship, the South
African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9.
District 9 becomes a cesspool. (For the sake of watching you have to suspend
your disbelief. These folks traveled a zillion light years to get here and can’t
build a trash truck that runs on carrot juice or something like that; can’t use
some sophisticated ray gun to make garbage disappear or morph into a Tootsie
Roll. It would appear that when they were exposed to our air they lost their
minds and their technology evaporated.)

There are
many statistics about what we toss out; they vary from year to year, state to
state, methods of data collection, yada yada yada. Here are some that are
certainly compelling:

4.4 pounds
(although some other often cited sources say 7 pounds): The amount of trash
generated daily, on average, by every American.
254 million tons of trash that Americans generate in a year.
28 billion pounds of food a year gets tossed.
5.7 million tons of carpet a year.
22 billion plastic bottles thrown out yearly.
4.5 million tons of office paper a year.
12 feet: The height of a wall from Los Angeles to New York City that could be
made from tossed office paper every year.
300: Laps around the equator that could be made in paper and plastic cups,
forks, and spoons disposed of annually.

And within
this list of goodies we have growth. In particular, electronic waste has grown
to over 3.2 million tons of waste put in U.S. landfills yearly. This includes:
51,900,000 computers, 35,800,000 monitors, 33,600,000 hard copy devices,
82,200,000 keyboards and mice, 28,500,000 televisions and 152,000,000 mobile
devices. (Each replaced with new ones that are kept for a few years, until the
next new and greatest comes out and then those are tossed out until the next latest
and greatest comes out and then…)

Where does
all this go? The usual response is “to the dump”. This conjures up visions of
piles of “stuff” (old refrigerators, banana peels, bulging green/black plastic
bags, newspapers, etc.) just laying around, usually with a swarm or two of
birds dive-bombing and looking for goodies. The place smells, well…like
garbage. But today we should properly refer to the “dump” as a solid waste
landfill, as there have been rules and regulations relating to how to deal with
garbage disposal now for about 20 years. Modern landfills, at a minimum, meet
four basic criteria:

Full or
partial hydrogeological isolation: if a site cannot be located on land which
naturally contains leachate security, additional lining materials should be brought
to the site to reduce leakage from the base of the site (leachate) and help
reduce contamination of groundwater and surrounding soil. If a liner - soil or
synthetic - is provided without a system of leachate collection, all leachate
will eventually reach the surrounding environment. Leachate collection and
treatment must be stressed as a basic requirement.
Formal engineering preparations: designs should be developed from local
geological and hydrogeological investigations. A waste disposal plan and a
final restoration plan should also be developed.
Permanent control: trained staff should be based at the landfill to supervise
site preparation and construction, the depositing of waste and the regular
operation and maintenance.
Planned waste emplacement and covering: waste should be spread in layers and
compacted. A small working area which is covered daily helps make the waste
less accessible to pests and vermin.

So now you
know the end of the story and it’s my pleasure to bring you back to the
beginning to see how we got to where we are.

Dealing with
garbage is nothing new. It is steeped in the rich history of mankind’s
existence, during which time we created garbage. (We will skip ahead toward the
time when there is some written record because no one really knows where the
uneaten portions of the woolly mammoth were dumped.) Somewhere around 3000
B.C., the first landfill was developed when folks in Knossos, Crete, dug large
holes for refuse, and not unlike our modern landfills, covered with dirt. In 2000
B.C., China developed methods of composting and recycling bronze for later
use. (Hippies weren’t invented yet, believe it or not). In 500 B.C., Athens,
Greece, developed a new law claiming garbage must be dumped at least one mile
from the city.

Around 1350,
Britain passed a law mandating a clean front yard, but it was a colossal
failure as most garbage was still burned outside in fires, probably in the
front yard. In 1388, the English Parliament banned the dumping of waste in
ditches and public waterways. In 1407, Britain introduced their first garbage
men, perhaps the first official garbage men in history. (We now call them waste
management technicians). They called themselves “rakers” (which is a good name
for a heavy metal band) and their job was simply to rake up trash into a cart,
on a weekly basis. (For your information there is a National Garbage Man Day,
which is posted on the internet as the “week of June 17th”. There is an
official emblem and slogan – “Love your garbage man!”) In 1634, not to be outdone
by those across the pond, Boston officials prohibited disposing of fish and
garbage near the common landing.

We owe our
modern garbage removal processes to Corbyn Morris (1710 –1779) who called for
the establishment of a municipal authority with waste removal powers. In 1751,
he proposed that "...as the preservation of the health of the people is of
great importance, it is proposed that the cleaning of this city, should be put
under one uniform public management, and all the filth be...conveyed by the
Thames to proper distance in the country". (In1744, Mr. Morris also wrote
a spell binding pamphlet called “A Letter Balancing the Causes of the Present
Scarcity of Our Silver Coin, and the Means of Immediate Remedy, and Future
Prevention of This Evil.” It’s still available on Amazon for $14.63 and with
used versions as low as $10.11)

Sometime
later in the 18th century, dust yards sprung up in London where coal ash was
dumped. (This was really coal ash, which we know today is quite an issue).

In 1739, Benjamin
Franklin and his neighbors unsuccessfully petitioned the Pennsylvania Assembly
to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial
district. He followed up in 1757 by starting the first street cleaning service
and encouraged the public to dig pits to dispose of their waste. (In between
1739 and 1757 he flew his famous kite in the thunderstorm. The actual date is
June 10, 1752, which we should all mark on our calendars and pause for a minute
to be thankful he didn’t fry himself to a crisp.)

In 1846,
London passed the Nuisance Removal and Disease Prevention Act establishing the
Metropolitan Board of Works as the first citywide authority that centralized
sanitation regulation. Later the Public Health Act 1875 made it compulsory for
every household to deposit their weekly waste in “moveable receptacles” for
disposal – perhaps the first concept of the garbage can (excuse me refuse
and/or waste receptacles). Because the load of waste increased, the first
incinerator was built in Nottingham by Manlove Alliott & Co. Ltd., thanks
to the design of Albert Fryer. Not surprisingly, these were met with opposition
due to the large amounts of ash they produced, which wafted over the
neighboring areas. (Some things never change).

In 1855, New
York City stepped up to become the first city to have an organized garbage
disposal agency and built America’s first incinerator on Governors Island, New
York in 1885.

Garbage
remained garbage until after World War I when the post-war economy boomed with
a concurrent increase in solid waste that needed to be managed. Municipalities
began to realize some sort of citywide waste collection and disposal service
was needed and began providing such services. But, by the late 1920s, waste
collection and disposal costs had soared in the wake of expanding city limits,
forcing local governments to begin looking for ways to curb those costs. Focus,
however, was directed toward contracting out such services and implementing
mechanized collection, rather than development of integrated waste management
systems. During this period, municipalities began using transfer stations to
centralize wastes and use larger vehicles, barges, and railroads to transport
waste from the transfer station to a disposal site.

While more
waste was being generated and more efficiently managed during the interwar
period, land disposal was still the primary method of final disposition. Many
locations had the city or town "dump" where its waste was disposed.
(Let’s take it to the dump, Opie!) Though easy to construct and relatively
cheap to operate, the dumps were generally located near rivers and streams,
where liquids and refuse from the dumps could easily enter the water and
threaten water supplies (Duh!). In addition, they were extremely unsanitary,
attracted vermin, gave off repugnant odors, and were fire hazards. It was not
until 1929 that the federal government issued the first location restriction
for disposal sites by recommending, but not requiring, dumps to be located away
from river banks.

From the
beginning of the Great Depression to the end of World War II, various state
laws and court rulings prohibited certain disposal practices. For instance, in
1934, the United States Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling requiring New
York City to cease disposal of its municipal waste at sea. In the 1930s,
California passed laws prohibiting disposal of garbage within 20 miles of
shore. (We are always the first). While these actions may have helped remove
refuse from the waters near America's shores, they did not address the real
question, "What is the best way to manage garbage?"

As an aside,
moving garbage was initially done by horse drawn carts (adding their own
garbage as they moved down the street). With the development of the internal
combustion engine, trucks slowly took over in the early part of the 20th
century and the first close body trucks to eliminate odors with a dumping lever
mechanism were introduced in the 1920s in Britain. These were soon equipped
with 'hopper mechanisms' where the scooper was loaded at floor level and then
hoisted mechanically to deposit the waste in the truck. In the U.S., the
Garwood Load Packer was the first truck in 1938 to incorporate a hydraulic
compactor. (By the way, I was informed that the proper name for such a truck is
a “Refuse Handling Vehicle”, which is really political correctness run
amok.)

OK, back to
garbage dumps.

The concept
of a "sanitary landfill" was being developed in Great Britain in the
1920s. The British called this practice "controlled tipping" from
which the term "tipping fee", the fee charged by landfill operators
to dispose of waste at their facility, was probably coined. (My research is
inconclusive, but this name was either derived from the tipping of the truck
beds to empty the garbage or it could be that there would be a fee for dumping
and the actual art of tipping for service was becoming vogue.)

While open
dumping had been practiced for years, the idea of an engineered fill was quite
unique. By alternating layers of waste and either soil or another
non-putrefying material, the belief was that vermin populations, odors, and
fires could be reduced, making land disposal less smelly and more
"sanitary" and acceptable. The first modern "sanitary
landfill" in the U.S., built by British design, began operation in Fresno,
California, in 1934.

After WWII,
open burning dumps and backyard waste burning was prohibited in most areas and
the momentum of appropriate disposal of waste slowly shifted toward the use of
sanitary landfills across the nation. Of course, the old dump sites still
existed and continued to smell.

In
1965, Congress passed the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA), the federal
government's first effort to implement a comprehensive management framework for
the nation's solid waste. The SWDA was designed to assist state and local
governments with the technical and financial aspects of developing and managing
waste disposal programs and to promote the development of guidelines for waste
collection, transportation, recovery, and disposal. Amazingly, when the SWDA
was passed, there were less than 10 full-time employees in state solid waste
programs nationwide. (A college graduate was smart if she/he looked at this as
a career opportunity.) Furthermore, no state had any real solid waste legislation;
solid wastes were indirectly covered under health and nuisance statutes. Then,
in 1970, Congress passed the Resource Recovery Act, shifting the emphasis of
federal involvement from disposal to recycling, resource recovery, and
conversion of waste to energy. It also stipulated that a national system for
hazardous waste management be implemented. Also, in 1970, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) was born, which started enforcing the laws.

In 1976,
Congress expanded the federal government's role in waste management by passing
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), to be implemented by the
EPA. The goals of RCRA were to protect the environment, conserve resources and
reduce the amount of waste being generated. RCRA was divided into various
Subtitles, two of which dealt directly with waste management issues. Subtitle C
required development of a comprehensive hazardous waste management scheme to
ensure those wastes were safely managed from the moment they were generated
until final disposal (affectionately known as "cradle-to-grave").
Subtitle D was designed to deal with disposal of non-hazardous wastes and
ensure non-hazardous waste disposal sites were constructed in a manner to
greatly reduce environmental impacts.

In 1980, in
response to RCRA Subtitle C, the EPA promulgated its first regulations for the
management of hazardous waste. The regulations implemented several
requirements: identification of solid and hazardous wastes, standards for
generators of hazardous waste, standards for transporters of hazardous waste,
standards for hazardous waste disposal facilities, and requirements that must
be met to receive permits to operate a hazardous waste disposal facility.

In 1984,
Congress amended RCRA by passing the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of
1984 (HSWA). HSWA not only put into effect tough, new requirements for
hazardous waste management and disposal, but also mandated that the EPA develop
criteria for new solid waste landfills to drastically reduce the likelihood
that new Superfund sites would be created due to poorly constructed and
operated landfills. Thus, in 1991, the EPA promulgated a regulatory framework
for the construction and operation of landfills receiving municipal solid
waste. The criteria required all existing municipal waste landfills in the
nation to either: (1) install a comprehensive groundwater and gas monitoring
program, establish financial assurance to ensure funds were available for
proper closure and monitoring after closure, and meet certain operational requirements;
or (2) close. New landfills were required to be constructed with an engineered
liner system capable of preventing landfill liquids from migrating into
groundwater, in addition to implementing the groundwater and gas monitoring,
financial assurance, and more stringent operational requirements.

From a
regulatory standpoint, the "open dump" had been dumped. So long dump,
it’s been good to know you!

The views expressed in this document are solely the views of the author and not Martindale-Hubbell. This document is intended for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case or circumstance.

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